This invention relates to a method for manufacturing self-supporting synthetic trim parts, in particular car interior parts such as dashboards, doorpanels, consoles and glove compartments, having an elastomeric polyurethane skin, a rigid synthetic carrier and a mainly open-cell polyurethane foam layer therebetween.
Such a method is for example already disclosed in the Belgian patent application No. 08900228 of the same applicant. In this method, a layer of polyurethane elastomer is first sprayed against an inner surface of a mould. Then, a previously manufactured insert is positioned into this mould and the space between the insert and the elastomeric layer is filled with a polyurethane foam.
A drawback of this known method consists in that the insert, or in other words the rigid carrier, has to be manufactured in advance in a separate mould. This insert must moreover be accurately positioned into the second mould in order that the foam layer would have everywhere the desired thickness. Especially when this foam layer has to be thin, an exact positioning of the insert is important since a small variation of the foam thickness becomes in this event soon perceptible from the outside. In the case of thin foam layers, extending over a large surface, it is further difficult in the known method to spread the reaction mixture for obtaining this foam sufficiently homogeneously over this surface.
The invention aims now to obviate these different drawbacks and this by proposing a new method for manufacturing self-supporting synthetic trim parts which permits moreover the trim parts to be recycled in a simpler way after they have been put out of use.